


Wrestle the Angel

by brynnmck



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Pre-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-18
Updated: 2006-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brynnmck/pseuds/brynnmck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Simon we see in <i>Objects in Space</i> isn't the Simon we see in the opening scenes of <i>Serenity</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrestle the Angel

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Ann for the first Sweet Charity Auction. She wanted Simon angst and hurt/comfort, so I did my best. :) Thanks to [](http://sdwolfpup.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://sdwolfpup.livejournal.com/)**sdwolfpup** for the support and very helpful suggestions; I would have completely despaired without her.

"Simon."

The voice tugged at him. He tried to ignore it, knowing that unconsciousness was probably best at the moment for several reasons, but then it came again, a little panicked this time, " _Simon_ ," and his heart seized, _River_ , and he forced himself awake.

She was kneeling next to him, her eyes huge in the semi-darkness, her face streaked with dirt and—thankfully—only one or two bruises. She smiled at him, and he smiled back despite the sting of his split lip.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

She glanced quickly around the small, dingy room, gave him a twisted mouth and raised eyebrow that were pure River.

He laughed a little. "All right, I admit that's sort of relative at the moment." He tried to sit up, and immediately pain shot through him, bonfires at both his sternal and vertebral ribs on the right side, his left knee, his kidneys, his right scapula, most of his face. He fell back, gasping.

River took his hand gently, shamefaced, looking at the ground next to him. "I don't think anything's broken," she whispered. "Simon, I'm sorry, I didn't want to—"

"It's all right," he interrupted, trying to catch his breath. "We just—we have to find a way out of here. And the others got away, they're probably planning right now—"

"Dark," she murmured, shaking her head. "So dark…" She looked at him, solemn, mournful; he caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. "Simon… I don't think they're coming back."

 

*****

 

"Just once!" Mal was shouting at Zoe as they careened down the corridor, bullets zinging behind them. In the weeks since Inara had left them, he had been quiet and taut and quick to anger, but here he was in his element, barreling down some nondescript hallway with his latest victims on his heels. "Just once, I'd like to get through a job without bein' shot at, or punched, or stabbed…"

"We do seem to have a gift, sir," Zoe replied, unruffled, and Simon appreciated the glance she threw back at him to make sure he was still with them.

"I think it's the doc's fault," Jayne put in, panting under the weight of the bag over his back. "Sticks out like my big—"

Simon told himself it was perfectly acceptable to be a little glad that a bullet happened to pass just above Jayne's head at that particular moment. It was _above_ his head, after all, and not _in_ it, so that had to count for something. "I'd like to point out," he managed as the mercenary ducked and swore, "that, not only was this not my idea, but the last two times I've been out on a job with you, it was either your greed or… well, actually, your greed that got us into trouble."

"Less talkin', more runnin'," Jayne grunted, casting a nervous look at Mal.

Despite the shouts and clatter of their pursuers getting closer, Simon couldn't help a small, satisfied smile. They burst out into the sunlight, where _Serenity_ waited, her cargo bay doors stretched open like welcoming arms. He felt his smile bloom into a grin, and he had to admit, the adrenaline rush was not entirely a bad thing. Not something he'd want to do every day, of course, but every once in a while—

"Simon!"

The sound froze him in mid-stride. Horror sizzled through him like a lightning bolt, and he whirled, almost tripping, and it would have been funny had it not been for the sight of his sister, smiling and standing open-armed between them and the door to the complex.

It was Mal's turn to swear now, extensively and creatively, finishing with, "Who let her off the gorram ship?"

"River!" Simon shouted, his heart thudding with panic. "No! Run!"

She just kept smiling. "Simon! I feel fine!"

" _Tiānna_." He started toward her, but Mal grabbed his arm.

"There's no time," the captain gritted out. "Those men got EMP—they get out here and get a clear shot at _Serenity_ , we're all humped."

He snapped his head around to look at the other man. "You expect me to leave her?" he asked incredulously.

He could see the turmoil in Mal's eyes, but his mouth was set in a hard line. "These folk don't take too kindly to thieves, doc, but they ain't likely to hurt a woman."

Simon just gaped for a moment, then spat, " _Tāmāde liúmáng_!" Betrayal coiling hot in his stomach, he wrenched his arm away and stumbled back toward his sister. "River!" he yelled again, waving at her desperately. "Come on!"

But she didn't move, and he was only a handful of strides away from her when the first of the men barreled through the doorway. River whirled, her eyes wide, but their pursuers didn't hesitate. Simon flung himself toward her as the men surrounded her, and he'd learned a few things in the past several months and he thought River might be landing a few blows, too, but it was a losing battle from the start. Above the sound of his own struggles and racing heart, he heard _Serenity_ 's engines fire, and as his opponents forced him to the ground, he caught a glimpse of the Firefly winging away from them before a final blow knocked him into darkness.

 

*****

 

"Not coming back?" Simon blinked at his sister. "How can you… what… are you sure?"

"Simon…" Her lips began to tremble. "I can't feel anything… you gave me the medicine and I felt good and I wanted to tell you and now everything's dark, and I can't—"

Her voice was rising, and Simon hurried to quiet her. "Shhh, _mèimei_ , shhh, we'll be all right." He couldn't sit up, but he gripped her hand tightly, trying to steady her.

"You fixed me," she muttered, "you fixed me, and now I'm broken…"

Before he could ask her what that meant, footsteps from the hallway outside brought them both on alert. Simon had an entirely different reason to be grateful for adrenaline as he managed to pull himself into a sitting position, shielding River as best he could.

The door clanged open; three men stood on the other side, and one of them had a black eye that Simon was fairly sure was his own handiwork.

Black Eye grinned. "You ain't lookin' so good."

"Let her go," Simon insisted immediately, summoning all the bravado he could find. "She's done nothing to you." _Please, please, please don't let them have run our profiles on the Cortex…_

But Black Eye approached him with what appeared to be merely good old-fashioned malice and desire for retribution, as opposed to visions of vast Alliance-bestowed rewards. That was something, anyway. "Tell the truth, at the moment I'm more interested in what you have done than what she ain't." He flexed the purpled skin around his eye, then held up his boot to match the tread to the marks on Simon's shirt. "Hey. Shiny." His grin widened.

Simon braced for it, but there was only so much one could brace oneself for a kick in the ribs, and it doubled him over just the same. "You have… quite a flair… for clothing design," he managed between wheezes as River hovered anxiously over him.

"And you got quite a flair for stealin' our supplies," one of the other men replied, a grey-bearded man with an air of leadership about him. Then he shrugged a shoulder. "Well, 'cept for the part where you got yourselves caught."

Simon briefly considered pointing out that he and River didn't actually have the supplies, but he suspected that would only make their situation worse. "Let her go," he repeated instead. "She wasn't part of this."

Grey Beard closed the few steps between them, and Simon tensed again, but the man didn't touch him. "We got a pretty good deal goin' here," he said, his voice low with menace. "Got a lot of folk interested in us. That bein' the case, you understand that we can't just let you go. Gotta make an example of you. Gotta put up a signpost." He leaned down, his breath hot on Simon's face, and Simon tried not to shudder. "You understand that, right, boy?"

There wasn't much he could say in response to that, and he had a feeling a response wasn't expected; he just concentrated on not collapsing until the door slammed shut, the lock thunking into place, leaving them in darkness again.

 

*****

 

Time was difficult to measure, not surprisingly; he had no idea how long it took him and River to discover that there was absolutely nothing in the small room that could aid in their escape. And even River, preternaturally gifted though she was, couldn't walk through stone and steel.

The thought sparked a memory. "River."

She was checking the walls carefully with her fingertips; he didn't want to think about what might be on those walls, so he was relieved to see her pause and look over at him.

"Before," he said. "You said I fixed you. What did you mean?"

Her smile flashed briefly. "Before you left, the medicine you gave me. Made everything quiet for a while." Her face fell. "I wanted to tell you. I just wanted to tell you."

"It's all right," he assured her almost absently, his mind already spinning with excitement and possibility. "So—the cocktail I gave you. It worked?"

"Made it quiet," River repeated. Then she cocked her head. "So quiet, I couldn't hear…"

"Was that why you ran out to see us?" Simon asked, suddenly making the connection. "You couldn't… you didn't know the men were there?"

River shook her head, looking more miserable by the second. "I'm sorry, Simon, it's my fault—"

Simon rolled his eyes, which was about all the comfort he could manage in his current condition. "It's my fault we ended up on a ship with a bunch of criminals, so stop apologizing," he told her. Then, more excitedly, "But maybe if I just adjust the praxadan a bit, reduce the IAI inhibitor, it won't numb you so much, it'll just—" He stopped suddenly, frustration surging hot into his throat as the irony struck him. "Of course," he continued bitterly, "I won't be adjusting anything as long as we're stuck in this godforsaken hole."

"The Bible is broken, Simon," River told him solemnly, then returned to her methodical inspection.

He bit back a laugh because he couldn't stand to hear the edge of hysteria in it.

The darkness was unchanging, and he hurt everywhere; he prayed he didn't have a concussion, because as the excitement of his discovery drained away, he found he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. In his dreams, there was gunfire and swagger and _Serenity_ 's engines glowing warm in the distance, creative protein recipes and shared stories of their daring rescue; his sleeping mind was kind enough not to contradict him.

 

*****

 

The initial hours passed in a blur as Simon floated in and out of consciousness. He dreamed of _Serenity_ , of his parents, of River; some of the dreams were comfort and some were twisted horror, pulling him down and making him glad to wake to bruises and confusion and River watching him sadly from her vigil by his side. Every time he blinked his way to awareness and found them still alone in the dark, disappointment swamped him. Mal was changed, yes, but he'd never abandoned them, even at the beginning when he had no reason to take on such troublesome cargo; despite Simon's attempts to block it from his mind, the tiny whisper of faith he couldn't quite crush dogged him even into unconsciousness.

Eventually, he found himself able to stay awake for longer and longer periods, the worst of his pains subsiding into dull, constant aching. As the time stretched, they settled into a twisted sort of routine. From time to time, their captors stopped by to freshen up a few of Simon's bruises. They asked him how the crew had known about their complex, how they'd planned the heist, but Simon only knew the relatively small part he had been asked to play; he couldn't have answered them honestly even if he'd wanted to. They didn't threaten River—and still, after all these months on the run, Simon couldn't quite comprehend the strange honor code that seemed to operate for some outside the Core, though in this case he was grateful for it—so he saw no reason to waste energy making something up. It was clear the men were primarily there for target practice, anyway. So he just kept his mouth shut—aside from the occasional snide remark he couldn't resist—and let them do their worst.

Calculating between them, he and River finally judged that they were being fed once a day, and they marked their time by the water and tasteless lumps of protein. It helped, at least a little, allowed them some tiny bit of control in their captivity. Waking in the dark no longer startled him, and he was starting to learn which areas of the stone floor were the most comfortable for sleeping. Their conscious hours were spent in a state of bored tension, anticipating and dreading the next interrogation session, trying to piece together from vague clues exactly what their captors intended to do to them. He and River passed the time as best they could, their discussions of childhood memories a mix of actual reminiscence and a code for escape plans that they explored and rejected in turn; even with River's training—even if she could somehow access it—they were still hopelessly outgunned. She was remarkably lucid, possibly a result of the overdose working its way through her system, and he was glad of that—he had no idea if a sudden outburst would disturb the incongruous chivalry of their hosts and put her in danger. The hours drifted by in a dreamlike haze of dimness and pain and seemingly endless waiting.

The protein meals were all the same, so he began chronicling his days by significant events. On the first day they started counting, he discovered that River had been responsible for his missing Cortex screen when she was three—she'd disassembled the unit and used the parts to create a simulation of the summer sky on her bedroom ceiling. At one point, he was certain he heard Jayne's voice in the hallway, but it was only Black Eye, stopping in for a visit. Later, nursing his bruised hands, Simon reflected that Jayne would have utterly disapproved of the other man's clumsy technique.

On the second day, he ended up with what he was fairly sure was a cracked rib when he pushed Grey Beard's patience too far; even the older man had a limit, apparently. He couldn't help wishing for Shepherd Book's mysterious liniment—the recipe for which he flatly refused to give to Simon—that worked better than most of the anesthetics they'd stolen from Ariel. And when Kaylee was the one applying it, he could swear the healing properties multiplied exponentially.

On the third day, he realized he could recall the uneven pattern on the ceiling perfectly even with his eyes closed, and tried not to think about the scant hours that Mal had been left in Niska's care before the rest of them burst in on their risky rescue effort, guns blazing.

On the fourth day, the rough wood covering the barred window on the back wall of their cell was stripped away without explanation. Blinking in the harsh and sudden sunlight, Simon fought tears away and braced for what might be coming next.

When he saw the hanging scaffold being built, perfectly framed in the newly-revealed window, the meaning became clear enough. He looked over at River, hope finally fading to a kind of helpless incredulity, _would they really?_ , but she just watched him with funeral eyes and shook her head, and he had his answer.

That night, he dreamt of _Serenity_ again. He and River were running, running, and this time, just as they reached the ramp that would bring them into the cargo hold and home, their feet passed through the metal as the ship shimmered and faded until it disappeared entirely.

 

*****

 

Simon had never really considered how long it might take to build a scaffold, but their captors seemed to be models of efficiency. The steady pounding of nails into wood continued through most of the following day, and Simon and River could do nothing but listen. The "blessing" of their new view was balanced by the manacles that now held them shackled to the walls on opposite sides of the room; the insides of the manacles seemed to be covered with some kind of non-conductive material, but electricity sparked and sizzled along the exposed metal, making sleep a balancing act and escape essentially impossible. He tried to consider their options, tried to think of anything they might have missed, but he could only listen with growing desperation as the rhythmic sound of hammer on nail became a countdown he was powerless to stop.

River had grown steadily quieter since the revelation of the previous day, spending the majority of her time with her eyes on the window and her head cocked, as if she was listening. He wasn't sure what she could hear, wasn't sure how long it would take the dose he'd given her to wear off entirely. In the meantime, he didn't have the heart to tell her it was useless.

He rested his head against the wall behind him. The pounding was silent at last, the light in their cell had faded almost entirely. He let his eyes drift to River; she seemed to have fallen asleep for the moment, her head tipped to the side and her face soft in the dimness. He thought of all the times he'd watched over her in the previous months, thought of her face twisted with nightmares and bruised from electrodes, thought of the wooden monolith waiting for him outside, and suddenly all of his fear and frustration and long days of waiting coalesced into a single word, loud in his mind.

_No._

He felt something break loose inside him, something solitary and fierce with all the suffering of the past few years of his life behind it.

_No._

Then, "No," he whispered aloud, needing to say it. "No. It's not going to end like this." River didn't stir. He clenched his fists, heedless of the electricity or the dozen aches and bruises that flared to life with the action. They were on their own again, another home become an outpost, but he had given up everything for this, fled Reavers and soldiers and worse to keep his sister safe, and it was not going to end like this, hanged on some nowhere planet for the price of a few bags of ill-gotten goods.

He wasn't sure how long he sat there, repeating it over and over in his head while the fire built in him, before he heard footsteps in the corridor. His muscles tensed automatically, and his heart began to pound in his chest, a wild and reckless rhythm. He could hear the electricity humming along his shackles as he angled into the best defensive posture he could muster. On Jiangyin, he had closed his eyes and waited for death. Here, they were going to have to take him fighting with everything he had left, because they had come this far and he refused to accept that they could go no further.

When the door banged open, he almost welcomed it.

Which was why he wasn't quite sure how to react when he saw, not Grey Beard, but Zoe standing in the doorway, breathing hard and holding her favorite shotgun at the ready.

"Hey, doc," she said, giving him a brilliant grin. "Wanna get out of here?"

But before he could formulate a response, everything exploded into light and noise and gunfire and the floor was falling out from underneath him. _Well, this is certainly ironic_ , was all Simon had time to think before there was an especially bright blast, and then everything went dark.

 

*****

 

Simon drifted, blessedly pain-free for the first time in what felt like forever. Apparently the trade-off was the weights tied to his eyelids, though, so he could only listen as the voices penetrated his fog.

"… shouldn't'a taken that job in the first place," Kaylee was saying, and he could hear tears and anger in her voice. A hand clasped tight around his; he struggled to squeeze back, but his fingers wouldn't move any more than his eyelids would.

Mal's voice now, implacable. "We take what we can get, little Kaylee; all them parts you keep naggin' me about don't come cheap."

"You _left_ them! They coulda _died_!" Betrayal and hurt, and he didn't want her in the middle of this. Simon knew she cared for him, but her sun rose and set with her captain, and he hated to hear her torn between them.

Mal was silent for a moment, then, very quietly, "I do the best I can for my crew. You got a problem with that, you…" He stopped. "I do the best I can," he repeated, and then the sound of boots moving across the infirmary floor, and Simon slid into unconsciousness again with Kaylee's tears wet on his hand.

*****

 

When he finally opened his eyes, Kaylee's head was pillowed on the bed near his hip, one hand under her cheek and her eyes closed. Her other hand still twined loosely around his, and she was drooling a little.

He smiled. "Kaylee," he whispered, stretching to touch her hair with his fingertips.

She started, raised her head and blinked up at him, and then her lips curved and her face lit up like sunrise; he absorbed the warmth gratefully. "Hey," she said, her fingers weaving through his.

"Hey," he answered, then opened his mouth to say more, but before he could get anything out—

"River's fine," Kaylee assured him. "She's lookin' a sight better than you, in fact," she added, gently smoothing back his hair.

Simon winced, rueful. "I can imagine." He still ached just about everywhere, and he was glad Zoe had as steady a hand for stitches as she did, but they still stung fiercely.

Kaylee tilted her head, leaned a little closer. "Still awful good to see you, though." But then, as she watched him, her smile faded, and she dropped her eyes suddenly. "I'm so sorry, Simon."

Something twisted in his chest, but he kept smiling. "For what? You didn't do anything."

That snapped her head up again, anguish clear in her face. "That's exactly it. We didn't _do_ nothin'. We came as soon as we could, they had some kinda electro-magnetic shield and it took us a bit to break through, and by that time—"

"It's all right, Kaylee," he tried, but she just shook her head, tears glistening now.

"Wasn't right, Simon. Wasn't right at all, leavin' you there, and you should know that, you should know that we—that you and River—" Her voice broke, and he reached out, smoothing the tear tracks on her cheeks.

"Shhh, Kaylee," he murmured, and, backwards as it seemed, he felt something in him soothe and settle. Kaylee dropped her head to his arm, her hand still clasping his like a lifeline; he let his other hand rest on her tousled hair.

There was a part of him that was still drifting, still wary, still alone with his back to the wall and a scaffold waiting. But for the moment, at least, he could close his eyes and hold on.

 

*****

 

Simon was back on his feet within a couple of days. He wasn't particularly _comfortable_ on his feet, nor was he going to be winning any races anytime soon, but he was starting to sympathize with his patients' dislike of the infirmary in an entirely new way. And there was a new voice in his head, too, whispering stubbornly about showing weakness and dependence, and he couldn't quite ignore it.

Besides, Jayne had come to look in on him, and if the utter wrongness of _that_ didn't get him out of bed, nothing would.

Mal, though, he hadn't seen; still, he wasn't surprised when the captain suddenly found business very near Simon's room as he was reacquainting himself with the space. He supposed he could have avoided the confrontation, but he didn't see much point to that. In fact, he was realizing that he had some confronting that he wanted to do, as well.

Mal was predictably casual, despite the fact that Simon caught him loitering outside the guest quarters with what Simon was fairly sure was an utterly useless engine part in his hands. "Doc," the captain greeted him. "You're lookin'… well, kinda like hell, actually."

"Funny what a few days with some angry locals can do," Simon replied evenly.

Mal blinked, surprised, and that was good. "Been there a few times my own self," he answered finally, something wary in his eyes now.

"I'm sure you have." Simon waited, making Mal wait, then continued, "I wonder, though, if it was under quite the same circumstances."

He could see a muscle twitch in Mal's jaw, but the other man betrayed no other outward sign of emotion. "Haven't spent much time on that planet."

Simon could hardly keep from rolling his eyes. "That's not what I'm talking about. And you know it. You knew about the shield. You had to; you're too accomplished a thief not to." He let the full force of his anger power his words, saw them hammer at Mal and was glad. "And you left us there anyway, knowing it could be days before you came back, knowing that we could be—"

"I'll tell you somethin', doc, though this won't be the first time you heard it." Mal stepped closer, now; Simon refused to flinch. "My crew comes first. All of 'em, not just the ones who seem to keep findin' their own particular brand of trouble wherever they go."

"I thought we were part of your crew," Simon shot back, and that was more than he'd meant to say, more than he'd meant to show, but the words were out there now and he couldn't take them back.

For half a second, Mal looked so stricken and desperate that Simon felt sorry for him; then he remembered River chained to a wall and his resolve hardened again. By that point, Mal's mask was back in place anyway. "I do the best I can for my crew," Mal grated out, like a mantra. "You got a problem with that, you're welcome to find yourself another boat." They held the stand-off for another few breaths, until Mal turned abruptly and walked away.

Simon watched him go, feeling light-headed from his rage or his wounds or some combination of the two. Then he heard a soft noise behind him, turned to see River standing in the doorway of her room.

"Lost in the labyrinth," she said. "Thread's unraveling."

"If we have to, we'll find a new thread," Simon told her, and crossed the hall to tuck her into bed.


End file.
